When an ankle is injured, even a highly skilled orthopedic physician cannot determine merely from observation whether the injury is a sprain, pulled ligaments, a fracture or a combination thereof. As a result, the orthopedic physician normally has the ankle X-rayed to assist him in determining the extent and exact nature of the ankle injury. Such X-rays become significantly more meaningful if the ankle is stressed by rotating the foot inwardly (inversion) and/or outwardly (eversion) when the X-ray pictures are taken, and then compared to the X-rays of the patient's unstressed ankle. In the past, ankle stressing has been accomplished by having one person manually stress the ankle by supporting the calf with one hand and rotating the foot in the desired direction with his other hand while a technician takes an X-ray picture of the stressed foot. Obviously this procedure has a number of disadvantages. For example, it exposes the ankle stressing person, due to his proximity to the ankle of the patient, to an undesirable amount of X-radiation. Secondly, it is difficult, if not impossible, for a person to manually, repetitively apply exactly the same amount of stress to an ankle. However, identical stress application is important where it is desirable to compare bone separation in the injured ankle with bone separation in the uninjured ankle to assist in determining the extent of ankle injury, for example. In this regard, it has been found that the angular amount of inward and outward ankle rotation that occurs when the same stress is applied varies from patient to patient. Consequently, merely rotating the ankle by a predetermined angle provides insufficient information for X-ray comparison purposes. That is, because some ankles will be significantly stressed and others lightly stressed when an ankle is rotated through the same angular amount, angular readings are an inadequate indication of ankle stress. Yet is is ankle stress that is important in determining the nature and extent of ankle injuries. As a result, machines of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,876 entitled BODY MEMBER SUPPORT FOR X-RAY EXAMINATION, by Jeffery P. Smith, are generally unsuitable for use in obtaining X-rays showing the affect of a known amount of stress on an ankle. Obviously, it would be desirable to provide a machine for stressing an ankle such that the ankle can be X-rayed in a stressed position, particularly such a machine that allows the stressing person to move away from the source of X-radiation and, thus, limit his exposure.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an ankle stress machine.
It is another object of this invention to provide an ankle stress machine suitable for use in connection with X-ray equipment so that the ankle can be X-rayed in a stressed position.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide an ankle stressing machine suitable for use in X-ray equipment to stress the ankle in a manner that allows the stressing person to move away from the source of X-radiation during the X-ray taking procedure.